Online Poker Tells

Reading Players In Online Poker

In the virtual world of online poker, it’s more difficult to discover a tell than if you were playing the same opponent live. When a person takes more time than usual to make his move, is it because he or she is truly thinking or has their Internet connection simply slowed down? Perhaps they went to take a potty break, or their telephone is ringing. You must be very conscious of what’s taking place at the table to pick up on a tell that may be the difference between you taking down a big pot or being the sucker yourself. Below you will find links to some of our other poker strategy related articles.

Typical online poker tells

There are a few tells that are easy to spot, and they have roots from live poker strategy. If you’ve ever heard the term “weak means strong and strong means weak”, that applies to any poker, regardless of whether it’s online or live. For example:

You’re playing 5/10 Limit Hold’em and after only one late position caller, the SB completes and you check your option in the BB holding 8 5 off suit

The flop comes A 8 2

The late position caller acts first and checks, the SB checks, and you bet here as your pair of eights is very likely the best hand at this point

The late caller now check raises you and the SB folds

Your options here are to call his raise or fold, right? NO! Rewind the hand in your head and think about what his actions are telling you. The majority of the time, at a full ring game table, a late position player will almost always try to steal the blinds pre-flop when holding a ragged ace. This player limped in, making the odd of him holding an ace somewhat slim. His raise is an act of appearing to be strong (which probably means he’s weak, remember?). Of course you can fold here but the better play is to re-raise him to see where you’re at. If he raises you again, then you may reconsider your hand but even here you have to use the power of recall to think about his play in similar situations from earlier play (perhaps you’re using Poker Office to view these stats).

Of course, in the example above the player could have an ace. However, this “tell” of acting strong on that type of flop is a more likely scenario.

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The time game, posturing for the camera

So many players online have learned the game from watching the exaggerated actions of players on television posturing for effect when they’re going to fold a hand and make a big raise. Many of them try to emulate that style when they play online. What you must learn to read is whether the stalling technique is a bluff or perhaps their connection is just slow. There are many ways to do this; long term observation, looking at their connection strength (some sites offer this), or simply asking in the chat window, “are you on wireless or dial-up? Your connection seems slow”. Sometimes you get an honest answer! If that’s the case you can then base your decision based on the action before the flop, the flop, and the fact that he’s using a wireless at the airport while waiting on his plane.

The reality is, poker is still a game of incomplete information. To be successful you must be able to read players and situations well. Even on the Internet, tells are only one component of the game. The better you are at “reading” players online, the better off your bankroll will be long term.